Per Ardua Ad Astra
by Kitashime
Summary: What's that old saying? Don't judge a book by its cover. Well you can't judge this one can you? You've got to take a deep breath and rip off the wrapping paper and hope that you'll like whatever is inside. Try it with this story. I promise you won't be disappointed. Take a deep breath and dive headlong into the unknown. *Just to clarify. This IS an Avengers fic, not an OUF*
1. Coffee Beans and Cab Drivers

_What's that old saying? Don't judge a book by its cover. Well you can't judge this one can you? You've got to take a deep breath and rip off the wrapping paper and hope that you'll like whatever is inside. Try it with this story. I promise you won't be disappointed. Take a deep breath and dive headlong into the unknown. It's WAY more fun that way._

_Hello Thanks for taking a chance on my story. I wrote it over three weeks ago but didn't have the guts to post it until now. I'm about to choose my advanced courses at school and I've been recommended for a Gifted Creative Writing course. I definitely don't think I'm good enough so I'm going to post this story over the course of the summer up until the day I have to pick. If this story gets reviews, criticisms, support, readership, I will both be amazingly happy and it'll help me pick whether I do/get picked for the Create-Write course or just regular English Lit! So help guys! Any offered is appreciated! Enough babbling. Read on!_

Every good story ought to begin with 'Once upon a time,' right? Well, mine literally begins 'Once upon a time.' You'll get the humour, or lack thereof later.

Well, once upon a time, the Moon was my anchor. My mom had always told me that no matter where I was in the world, if I closed one eye and held up my hand to the sky, the Moon would never be any bigger than my thumb. I took comfort from that, knowing that whether I was crouched in a sewage-drenched Victorian alley or sprinting from centaurii in pre-Christian Rome, the Moon remained, hanging stoically and silently, watching me progress through the ages, popping up in the inconvenient occasions.

I could see it through the bars of my cell in Civil War-era Texas and beyond the hordes of bombers flying ominously overhead wartime London. It hung there, following my terror, my fears, my tears, noiselessly orbiting, always just out of my reach.

It stopped reassuring me when that thought occurred to me. Just as the Earth would never quite be in reach of the Moon, I would never be in reach of the cure to my curse.

_I must govern the clock, not be governed by it- Golda Meir_

"Coffee, please," I said, holding out my card to the barista behind the counter. She looked at me blankly, taking my card between manicured nails, and holding it up, a thinly disguised look of disgust on her face. So nice to see civility reigns in New York. Jeez.

"What kind?" she sighed, as if I was somewhat mentally deficient, an tone of sarcasm undercutting her faux-pleasant tone. "Latte, Americano..."

Two could play at the sarcasm game. "Coffee beans dissolved in hot water, dash of milk, hold the sugar."

"We don't stock that, _ma'am_." Her irritation level was building, as were those of the patrons in the queue behind me, if their tuts and tsks were anything to go by.

"You're a coffee shop. How can you not stock plain coffee?" I looked up at the menu board. Exotic mixtures with even more exotic names stared down at me. I sighed. "Just charge me for an Americano and make me a coffee with the staff kettle." She looked at me uncertainly, muttering something about checking with her manager.

"Just forget it," I snapped, snatching back my AmEx and marching out of the deli, fumbling in my bag for my purse. I located it as I stepped onto the sidewalk, and caught the shoulder of a suit, knocking me off balance, the purse out of my hand, scattering cards and receipts and sending me stumbling into the road. A hand shot out, yanking me backwards a split second before a cab screeched to a halt not two feet away from me. The cabbie hurled a vicious four letter word at me before driving off.

"Typical New York," I sighed, crouching to pick up the contents of my purse. My rescuer bent down to retrieve the rest of the cards before a light-fingered opportunist could take advantage. We stood, and I looked up into the face of my rescuer. Tall, blonde and either addicted to serious steroids or a gym devotee. The sort of guy I definitely would have enticed into some kind of beverage-serving establishment if I wasn't, I checked my watch, so hideously late for work.

"Thank you. So much, I mean, I'm a complete klutz and that kind of thing happens to me all the time, and I'm dreadfully late for work, so I can't stay but thank you!" I exclaimed to my somewhat bemused rescuer as I dashed off, diving into the subway before I could do something else to embarrass myself.

My frustration in the coffee shop only led to trouble for me as the day went on however. I dozed off at my laptop more than once and Phil had to covertly kick me under the table when a superior wandered past.

The Director seemed to be in a serious funk about something since all I heard as I approached his office was violent shouting. I hesitated at his door, glancing at his secretary for confirmation. She nodded, 'rather you than me' written all over her face.

Director Fury slammed down the telephone as I stepped inside, steepling his fingers under his chin, deep in thought, good eye closed. I coughed quietly. His eye snapped open, fixing on me. "Agent, how might I help you?"

"Files from IA have been sent up, sir, we cross-referenced, pre-checked and.."

"Put them on that table, I'll look at them later." He hesitated, looking up at me. "Who are you?"

"Inter-Governmental Comms, sir."

"Where's Agent Sollen?"

"Kazakhstan."

"Agent Gibbs?"

"Bristol."

Fury stood up, picking up a thin file and passing it to his assistant, before heading for the door. "Walk with me."

Surprised, I stepped back to let him pass. "Sir?"

"You're the exchange from SIS, right?"

"That's me," I said, glancing up suspiciously at the Director. "What do you need?"

"Good links with your old boss?"

"Director Brede? Somewhat, I suppose." Please, please, not London. Not now.

"Call him. Get our own file off him any way you can. I don't care what you use, money, blackmail, feminine charm, just get it off him now." He thrust a piece of paper into my hands. "Then go to this address. Get the occupant out any way you can and get him to the 'carrier, ASAP, Agent. Clear?"

I snapped to attention. "Yes sir." He dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

Amazing. No coffee, a near-brush with death, a date with my old arsehole of a boss and a shitty little retrieval mission that didn't even have the decency to be somewhere exotically tropical with decent coffee. I stepped into the office and leaned over to pick up the telephone when a familiar sense of vertigo hit me and my vision blurred and blacked out. I heard Phil shout my name but I was gone before I hit the floor.

Review please. Much love, I'll update as soon as I can Hehe, just realised I didn't even have the decency to tell you the narrator's name. Whoops ;)


	2. Gunfights and Good Coffee

_Don't own, won't be sued. You made ENOUGH money at the box office Marvel, don't take away our beloved imaginations!_

A putrid smell assaulted my nostrils as I came to, and I choked, covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve. My head throbbed, but nothing more serious than a dull ache, my only indicator thus far that I hadn't skipped too many centuries. My shift site appeared to be some kind of back alley, behind what I assumed to be factories, judging by the plumes of foul-smelling smoke rising from blackened chimneys. In the distance I could hear the distant rumble of engines, old, badly tuned engines, it was true, but engines nonetheless. Post-Industrial Revolution then. Thank God.

I froze as I heard voices drawing nearer, and I dragged my unwilling limbs behind a filthy crate and crouched up as best I could. Dockworkers perhaps? Factory workers?

"Boss said back here, huh?" Heavily accented Brooklynese echoed against the alley walls not two feet from me. I tensed as I heard something metallic clatter to the floor. A crowbar? My hand twitched towards my blade, heart pounding as I willed the feeling back into my legs. Sensation prickled, inching achingly slow towards my ankles. Gingerly, I peered out of my hiding place, attempting to gauge size, weight, possible athleticism... A blinding flashlight was suddenly trained on me and the previously unseen accomplice stepped out of the shadows.

"Woul'ja look at this boys? Lady of the evenin' thinks she can make a bit of extra dough spyin' for the Marcinelli brothers." _Marcinelli brothers. 1930s New York Italian-American gangsters, operating primarily in Queens and Staten Island. Reputation for bloody turf wars with the All-American Goodman Family. _Ah Wikipedia, you save my life once again.

"Marcinelli brothers?" I protested, layering on the innocence – and the fake American accent- with a metaphorical trowel, "I'm from Manhattan, the Upper East Side. I got dragged down here by some Italian man. You have to help me, before he comes back!"

The man with the flashlight lowered the light uncertainly, but the slimmer of the two crate-hunters spat disparagingly on the floor. "Rich scum," he hissed, "While you're lording it up in your fancy apartment, we're all stuck in Hooverville." He turned back to pick up the metal pipe at his feet before looking between his two collaborators. "I say we kill her, let the pigs find the body and let them pin it on the Marcinelli's." His friends shuffled uneasily and he seemed disgusted by their indecision, and snarled as he raised the pipe, clearly intending to smash it down onto my head, and clearly _not _expecting the closed penknife I ripped from my belt and smashed into his jaw, shattering it most effectively and knocking the son of a bitch spark out.

His two friends seemed to have overcome their distaste and lunged for me, missing my boot by inches as I scrambled up onto the crate, leaping over the gaps and hurtling out onto the street... and straight over a car bonnet. I hit the tarmac, hard, tearing open my shirt and grazing my knee.

"Second bastard time today," I groaned, as bystanders stopped to stare. New York hadn't exactly changed much in eighty years then, huh? My pursuers however, couldn't care less, and had now drawn handguns and were firing haphazardly in my general direction. Bullets peppered the buildings in all directions, shattering windows and separated huge chunks of brick from the walls. Pedestrians dived for cover and I leapt up, despite the agony in my shoulder, drew my own SHIELD-issue weapon and returned fire. The agony in my shoulder made my accuracy somewhat squiffy, but it was still miles better than the pitiful efforts of the two gangsters. Unfortunately for me, the two gangsters had the advantage, despite all my SIS training, my weapon could not conjure ammunition out of thin air. My final shot in the clip redeemed itself by passing neatly through the frontal lobe of Flashlight, but only served to make Muscle Man somewhat pissed off with ammo-less little old me.

"Shit," I swore, snapping open my penknife. It was pitiful in comparison to Muscle's revolver but it would have to do. Taking two steps, I threw myself over the bonnet of a parked car, and crouched behind it, wincing as Muscle's rounds peppered the beautiful black paintwork of the car, waiting for the round that would pass through me.

"Ma'am?" I turned, and was horrified to find a skinny kid crouching behind me, an adrenaline-fuelled grin on his face.

"Get out of here kid, he wants me dead, you'll only be caught in the crossfire..." I tailed off, as I noticed what he was holding out to me. A revolver. Full clip. Safety catch set to fire. "You might just have saved my life though. Find somewhere safe to hide." As the kid scrambled across the pavement, I cocked the weapon, and wriggled carefully under the car's undercarriage. Get this wrong, and I was a sitting duck. I lined up the shot, taking a deep breath and squeezing the trigger. The bullet exploded out of the chamber with a much larger explosion than I was expecting. Powder shot up my nose and wormed its way into my eyes and I choked, wondering if I'd buggered the shot and was now somewhat dead, but a loud groan two feet from me and the strong metallic smell of blood shot a great wave of relief through me as I wriggled out from under the car. Muscle lay in a pool of his own blood, his knee shattered. Gruesome but not life-threatening. I grabbed a tablecloth out of a shattered shop front and bound his leg tightly in a rudimentary tourniquet, before instructing a group of young children to run up to the precinct and fetch cops and an ambulance. My skinny saviour sidled up as I finished aiding my shooter and my attention turned back to my own agonising shoulder.

"That was a great shot ma'am."

"Cheers," I said, easing the revolver's working parts and setting the safety catch before handing it back to him. "Lots of training."

He took the weapon and shoved it back inside his too-big shorts. Blood was trickling down his legs where he'd knelt on broken glass, and I felt guilty.

"Let me take a look at that?" I asked, pointing at his injuries. "I'm a medic, I'll be gentle." He sat down obediently, letting me examine his knees.

"Don't you mean nurse, lady?" he asked, wincing as I gently removed a sliver of glass and tossed it into the drain.

"No, a medic. In the Arm-er- British Army. We do things a bit differently."

"I'll say!" he exclaimed, forcing me to smother a chuckle at his imitation. "I never heard of a dame in the Army before."

"We're British, we're all a bit odd." I borrowed another teacloth from the drapers and bound his knees tightly to inhibit the blood from flowing freely. "If it doesn't stop bleeding by tonight, go and see a real doctor, okay?" He grinned up at me, a warm smile despite his sickly pallor and underfed body. "Now, shouldn't a lady know the name of her rescuer?" I asked, stooping to help him to his feet.

"Steve, ma'am. Steve Rogers. Of Brooklyn," he told me, testing out his newly stiffened knees.

"Well Steve, Steve Rogers of Brooklyn, thank you for coming to my rescue. You better run along home and stash that weapon somewhere safe." I smiled down at the kid, straightening my jacket and wondering just where I could go to sit and wait out my 'return flight.' His face, however, dropped.

"You're leaving?"

I looked down at the visibly disappointed kid, and sighed. It couldn't hurt to take the kid home could it? He couldn't be older than, what, thirteen? Even with my somewhat messed-up morals I couldn't just let a kid wander all the way back to Brooklyn with a Smith and Wesson stashed in his shorts.

I sighed. "Clearly not just yet. Come on then, Steve Rogers of Brooklyn, take me to your leader." He looked at me blankly. "No? Too early? Forget it."

Clearly the part of my brain dedicated to coffee had other ideas than me walking a skinny little kid, who was waddling like a duck thanks to the strapping on his knees, all the way back to Brooklyn, since as we made our way through the dank high rise buildings of what Steve proclaimed as 'his territory,' vertigo hit me for the second time that day and I tumbled to the ground, with Steve's horrified shouts the last grip I had on conscious thoughts before I heard a loud crash as I fell into something hard and covered in paper, scattering it all to the ground.

"So where were you this time? Your shoulder's bleeding pretty bad too."

"Jeez Phil, nice to see you too," I said, reaching dizzily up for my chair, and pulling myself into it. "I mean I clearly just went for a coffee break, not being jettisoned back to 1930s New York to get shot at by idiotic gangsters who can't shoot straight for the good of their lives. Speaking of which..."

"On your desk, easy on the milk, hold off the sugar, touch of caramel. Who you kill this time?"

"It's CA-RA-mel, not CAR-a-mel."

"Like I give two. Who was it?"

"Just grunts without an IQ point to split between them. Thought I was a prostitute. Tried to kill me with lead piping. Knocked out one, killed another and shot the third in the knee." I sipped the coffee before dialling London and tucking the phone under my ear.

"Neatly done."

"Very much so. Weirdest thing though, I ran out of ammo and this kid comes running up and hands me a Smith and Wesson, chamber fully loaded. Saved my life. Could you look him up for me?"

"Next round at Allen's is on you if I do. What was his name?"

"Ste... Oh hello, Denise. It's Agent Rosen, I need to speak to the Director." Brede's secretary had finally had the decency to get off her Primark-clad arse and answer the phone. "It's about Nick Fury and, I checked the name on the address and choked.

"_Agent? Director Brede will accept your call, after his meeting. Subject concerning?"_

"Er... removal of SHIELD sensitive data and all files concerning... Ste... Steve Rogers."

"_Connecting to your listed mobile number. I will send a text alert when he's ready to accept your call. Goodbye."_

I slammed down the phone.

"What's up?" Phil asked.

I stared at him in utter shock.

"What?" he frowned, slightly more cautiously.

"Either someone has developed the same curse as I have, or..."

"What are you talking about?"

"The skinny kid who saved my life in Brooklyn eighty years ago is now of serious interest to the Directors. How you gonna explain that, Wonderboy?"

"Easily," Phil smirked, "The skinny little kid in Brooklyn who saved your life is now a 93-year old."

"What danger could a 93-year-old possibly pose to SHIELD?"

"Well, he goes by a different name now."

"Phil, if you don't stop talking in riddles, I'm going to pour this scalding coffee straight down your neck and video and YouTube the results," I snapped.

"Fine. You want me to explain, Out-of-Touch-Annie?"

"Sure do. And it's Ann-A not Ann-IE."

"Fine, Out-of-Touch-Tatiana-Lisabeth-Natalia-Rosen-Rusakov."

"If you want me to announce your middle names to the entire office..." I threatened.

"Fine. He's Captain America, now. Happy?"

If a living-breathing god had appeared right there and then, in the flesh, I couldn't have been more surprised.

Which of course, Thor did.

Typical.

Okay... Little bit ( a lot ) unsure. I genuinely don't think anyone except my lovely two reviewers have read this story and that makes me cry a little bit. Thank you to the two lovelies who did review, virtual cookies forever! If you did read this story please leave a review so I know you liked it. I crave them! Reviews are my crack! Anyway, next chapter up soon. I gave you her name! What more do you want ? Steve/Anna action/awkward flirting in the next chapter. Alons-y!


	3. XRays and Smartass Agents

_Thank you for all the lovely reviews guys! They kept me going through a pretty tough training week, but next week I'm planning to kayak, source to mouth, the Thames so no updates for a week or so. I PROMISE to have the next chapter up by Sunday, Saturday if I get 20+ reviews. ;) Enough babbling, on, on! _

_Don't own. Will never own. *Sob*_

_Chapter 3_

"Son of Coul?" Thor asked, uncomfortably, shifting his too-big frame awkwardly in the doorway. "I wondered if I might request some assistance."

Phil glanced up, silent tears of mirth still running down his face and nodded at the demi-god. The inane urge to punch the grinning face was almost too much to bear. How dare he? How dare he laugh at my misfortune?

"See you later Doc," Phil laughed, following the Asgardian into the hallway. "Enjoy your pick up."

I wanted to throw something at _him_, but instead I grabbed my bag, capped my coffee and headed for the lift, silently cursing Steve Rogers, Coulson, Director Fury, Director Brede, the gangsters and any other idiot who had the misfortune of crossing me today.

_Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine- Friedrich Schiller_

The Captain's apartment building in Brooklyn was far nicer than my own, despite my extortionately high-rent and supposedly excellent borough, with window boxes and a distinct lack of graffiti decor that seemed to be the norm around here. I paid the cabbie and stepped out onto the street, realizing why Rogers had chosen the building. The shop front had been removed and replaced with a wall and double-glazed windows, but the odd shape remained, and I recognized it as the draper's shop I had stolen tea-towels out of eight decades ago. Funny old world.

The buzzer was broken, but the door had been left on the latch, presumably for the benefit of the children playing in the small scrubby yard off to the side, so I simply wandered inside and up the stairs to the top-floor apartment. Melancholy music wafted out from under the doorframe as I knocked.

"Unlocked," shouted a masculine voice from inside. I pushed the door open and stepped into a sparsely decorated living room. Two mismatched leather chairs, a glass coffee table, a gramophone and a television, still inside its box, made up the furniture and two wartime-era posters advertising the '40 and '41 World Series decorated the walls.

"Vera Lynn," I said, by way of introduction, peering round, as if he were crouched behind one of the chairs, or concealed beneath the coffee table. _Idiot, _I chastised myself.

"You look a little young to appreciate her," said a voice. I whirled round to find the Avenger leaning casually against the doorframe, coffee mug in one hand, uncocked sidearm in the other.

"My mother was a fan." I told him, reaching into my pocket for my badge. He tensed, thumb brushing over the cocking pin of the weapon. "Agent Rosen, SHIELD."

He relaxed, placing his weapon down on the side table, but still eyed me suspiciously.

"What does SHIELD want with me now?"

"Just you. I'm sorry. I don't know any more. They don't see fit to tell us lowlifes what's going on, I'm afraid..." I tailed off as I noticed Steve frowning at me. "Is something..."

"Have we met?" he asked abruptly.

"No," I said firmly. "I was still in London during the New York attacks."

"You look vaguely familiar."

"Someone else, I'm afraid."

He snapped out of his intense thought train, and the distrustful look stole back across his face.

"What are you planning to do with me then?" he asked, setting down his coffee mug, and reaching for his jacket.

"You're due on the heli-carrier by thirteen-hundred hours. Fury's calling an emergency conference." I checked my watch. 1143. Plenty of time to get the nice super-soldier out of my hair. "We're taking a cab downtown to the landing strip for the shuttles. Next one leaves in forty-five minutes."

Steve remained silent all throughout the ride downtown, but looked across at me as we settled into our seats on the shuttle.

"You look pretty young to be an agent."

"Jeez, thanks, I'm twenty-two!" I laughed, leaning down to adjust my rubbing boots. They still had the gangster's dried blood on the soles, and I brushed it away with the palm of my hand. Steve smiled awkwardly, looking down at his hands.

"And you talk like a soldier."

"Or a doctor."

"Are you...?"

"Both."

We lapsed back into silence.

"I met someone like you once. She looked like you, but she had blonde hair." I looked up at him uncertainly.

"My mother had blonde hair, but she died a long time ago. Too long for you to..."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

We gave up on conversation at that point, turning to stare out of the window at the looming heli-carrier.

_The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time- Abraham Lincoln._

_A few weeks later..._

I completed the last stitch on the agent's leg before mopping up the leftover blood.

"You're good to go," I smiled, patting his good leg reassuringly. "It'll be stiff for a few days but just keep strenuous activity to an absolute minimum and don't rip your stitches open."

The agent looked up at me, his face green, and I sighed. Squeamish people and me, the girl who readily describes gruesome diseases over dinner, were never gonna get along. He sat up, gingerly, and hobbled out of the medical platform. Eyes almost shut to avoid looking at the injuries being treated either side, he almost collided with a bloodied Coulson and a limping Steve coming in from the opposite direction. I hopped down off the treatment slab and washed my hands as they spotted my empty treatment cubicle and made a beeline for it.

"Nice to see you've been keeping yourself out of trouble, Phil." I patted the treatment slab and he lay down obligingly while I dragged up a chair and stool for Steve.

"Nice to see you back in your natural habitat, Anna."

"Yeah, well, next time Culkin gets himself into a car accident, it isn't going to be Dr. Muggins Rosen covering for him, whatever my credentials. What happened?"

Steve answered as Phil was occupied- wailing like a baby as I swabbed his cuts.

"Machine exploded in one of the test chambers," he informed me, hissing as he pressed the ice pack I had handed him onto his swollen ankle. "We both got shocked and he got sprayed by the hot glass from the screen shattering."

"Electrical circuit ruptured in one of the containment cells," Phil clarified as I wiped antiseptic over the worst of his cuts. He hissed a string of four letter words and I held the bottle menacingly over his open mouth.

"Next cuss that comes out of your mouth will be sterilised with Savlon. Remember, we've got forties-boy present." I tilted my head at a pained looking Steve. "How did you injure your ankle anyway? Isn't that serum supposed to turn you into a less-sparkly Edward Cullen?" Phil sniggered but Steve looked at me blankly.

"Who is..."

"Never mind," I interjected quickly, before Phil could throw any kind of smartass comment back. "What I meant was, I thought the serum protects you from injury?"

"He got whipped by a severed cable. Probably would've taken the leg off an ordinary human, but Kal-El over there only gets a sprained ankle."

"I'm gonna take a look at that, okay?" I told Steve, "Once I'm done with Barko over here."

I dragged over the wheeled X-ray scanner and set the scope over Steve's ankle before switching it on, and leaving it to warm up.

"Shouldn't you be in a special apron for that?" Phil asked. "And shouldn't we have those special groin plates if we're in close prox..."

"SHIELD's a tiny bit more high tech than your average NHS X-ray ward. This emits miniscule X-ray pulses as opposed to particles. Far safer, so don't worry, your balls are safe with me. You had X-rays in the forties, didn't you?" I directed the last part at a worried-looking Steve.

"Sure, but I never had one."

"So you're an X-ray virgin?" Phil asked, barely containing his giggles, until he came under my glare, which, never mind the X-ray, would certainly melt his balls.

"Ignore Russell Howard over there, you're safe with me."

"I know," he smiled, fixing me with that same intense look on his face as that time back in his apartment. I blushed, infuriatingly, and ducked to look through the lens of the scanner. His ankle bone came into focus, the normal shape, size and... hang on.

"I know..." Steve said suddenly.

"Okay..." I said, at the same time.

We smiled awkwardly.

"You first," I said, checking the lens once more.

"I remember where I knew you from."

"You do?" I sat up so fast, I bashed my nose on the edge of the lens. _Balls._ He couldn't possibly have placed my face even after eighty years, could he? Oh crap.

"Yeah," he grinned. "You walked out in front of a cab and I pulled you back." Oh thank you, merciful heavens.

"I was sort of knocked..."

"Of course..."

We tailed off again, looking awkward.

"My ankle?"

"Right, sorry. Your ankle is actually broken, but it seems to be fusing together on its own. Is that what the serum does?" I asked, sending the images I had taken to develop on the printer at the end of the ward before switching off the machine and posting it back in its former place.

"I don't know, I've never broken anything before."

"Regular Jacob Black aren't you." He fixed me with yet another blank look and I shook my head. "Never mind. There isn't much I can do if it's healing on its own, I'm afraid. Keep off of it as much as you can, keep it iced to reduce the swelling and keep any strenuous activity to a bare minimum. Come back in a couple days and I'll check it again. If it's healed wrong, I'll have to re-break it, and set it properly. No fighting, no superhero stuff for at least a week, you hear me? I'm sure Tony can hold the fort until then."

"Will I live Doctor?" Steve smiled, eyes twinkling at my little Doctor-Miranda-Rights, as I preferred to refer to them.

"I think we caught it just in time."

"If you two are _quite _done flirting, I really would like _Doctor _Rosen to treat my other wounds."

"They're gonna be some pretty impressive battle-scars, Coulson." Steve observed.

"Anything'll improve his face, right Phil?" The Savlon bottle exploded in a rather impressive fountain as it hit the wall, inches from where my head had been a millisecond before.

"Nice aim." Steve complimented.

_Love it? Hate it? Should I erase it from existence? I think the latter, what do you guys think? _

_And guys. Seriously. FF made it astronomically easy to review now. Be decent little lovelies, I beg of you!_

_Much love XOXO_


End file.
